Random thoughts for a Wednesday afternoon

I haven't done a wide open and rambling post for quite sometime. In the past I have resorted to posting this, usually on Saturday mornings, because it is the only way for me to come even close to capturing, if only in a very incomplete way, what happens to me. Last night I was very struck by Pope Benedict's opening remarks to bishops gathered in synod in Rome to discuss the vexing problem of the ancient Christian communities of Middle East. I have had many personal experiences with these communities, which have always deeply moved me. My faith is so weak compared to that of my sisters and brothers whose adherence to Christ places them in danger daily. I cannot believe for one moment that when the apostles said to Jesus "increase our faith," they knew what they asked.

I was particularly struck by the Holy Father's reference to "anonymous capital", that is, to the world's impersonal and depersonalizing way of doing business. I have to admit that by reading the Pontiff's remarks I felt very vindicated with my on-going critique of Goldman-Sachs, which, to me, exemplifies what Benedict was referring to when he spoke about "the anonymous capital that enslaves man, which is no longer in man’s possession, but is an anonymous power served by men, by which men are tormented and even killed. It is a destructive power, that threatens the world." These words, at least to my mind, are very prophetic.

I was also profoundly moved and gratified, not to mention privileged, to participate in the KUED discussion this morning, which seeks to bring some local flavor to the PBS event God in America. One thing that all of us who participated share is the belief in the transcendent dimension of human being, what Don Giussani so aptly termed the religious sense, which is nothing other than the recognition, at the level of personal consciousness, that existence, my existence, has meaning and purpose. So, the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II were absolutely correct to assert that the most fundamental human right is freedom of conscience with regard to matters of faith (i.e., religious freedom). The only human right more fundamental than the freedom to worship God according one's own conscience is the right to life, without which all other rights have no meaning.

Beyond just a common belief in the transcendent dimension of human being, we all share a belief that we are lovingly created in the image of God and that recognizing what Catholics call the imago dei in every person is the basis for morality and right action. After all, loving God with one's whole being and loving one's neighbor as one's self are taken directly from the Torah.

What the Catholic tradition brings to religion in America, which often tends to be very individualistic, is that faith and reason work together to bring us to the fullness of truth, to give us access to what we can really call knowledge. When the split between believing and knowing occurs it throws us off balance, puts us out of kilter. When reason is in the ascendant, we tend to become somewhat authoritarian. When faith holds the upper hand, we tend to be very individualistic and subjective, thus rendering faith as something that is merely private. This is why religious communities are so important, which is just a way of saying we need each other, we need connection.

It is never objectivity vs. subjectivity, but how do I engage reality according to the totality of its factors? As a Catholic the sacramental dimension, especially the Eucharist, around which everything else revolves, like the solar system orbits around the sun, is what connects me to God (in Christ by the power of the Spirit), to others, and to the world, showing me just why I am made, why what I do matters, not to mention why I am in church and not home watching football, or hiking, or sleeping, reading the newspaper, etc. In short, church is not where I have to be, but where I want to be because it is what allows me to be.

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam

"These ideologies that dominate, that impose themselves forcefully, are divinities"

It's been a long time since I have given props to my old friend Rocco Palmo, over at Whispers. So, it is with deep gratitude that I post some words of the Holy Father delivered yesterday at the opening session of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, a gathering for which I am offering both prayer and fasting over the course of its days. In keeping with his tradition of addressing the various synods convened at the Vatican by making some extemporaneous remarks, Pope Benedict delivered an unvarnished address that brings home the urgency of what the bishops are called upon to judge in these days. You can read Pope Benedict's entire address over at Whispers.

Indeed, the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East, both Catholic and Orthodox, as well as Syriacs and Copts, are experiencing something deeply painful and disturbing, something that is costing blood, making martyrs, that is, witnesses of many Christians in our own day. Among the His Holiness' remarks were these words that express well the evils we face:-

"right at the time of the rising Church, where we can see how the blood of the martyrs takes the power away from the [pagan] divinities, starting with the divine emperor, from all these divinities. It is the blood of the martyrs, the suffering, the cry of the Mother Church that makes them fall and thus transforms the world.

"This fall is not only the knowledge that they are not God; it is the process of transformation of the world, which costs blood, costs the suffering of the witnesses of Christ. And, if we look closely, we can see that this process never ends. It is achieved in various periods of history in ever new ways; even today, at this moment, in which Christ, the only Son of God, must be born for the world with the fall of the gods, with pain, the martyrdom of witnesses. Let us remember all the great powers of today’s history, let us remember the anonymous capital that enslaves man, which is no longer in man’s possession, but is an anonymous power served by men, by which men are tormented and even killed. It is a destructive power, that threatens the world. And then the power of the terroristic ideologies. Violent acts are apparently made in the name of God, but this is not God: they are false divinities that must be unmasked; they are not God. And then drugs, this power that, like a voracious beast, extends its claws to all parts of the world and destroys it: it is a divinity, but it is a false divinity that must fall. Or even the way of living proclaimed by public opinion: today we must do things like this, marriage no longer counts, chastity is no longer a virtue, and so on.

"These ideologies that dominate, that impose themselves forcefully, are divinities. And in the pain of the Saints, in the suffering of believers, of the Mother Church which we are a part of, these divinities must fall, what is said in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians must be done: the domin[ion]s, the powers fall and become subjects of the one Lord Jesus Christ. On this battle we find ourselves in, of this taking power away from God, of this fall of false gods, that fall because they are not deities, but powers that can destroy the world, chapter 12 of Revelations mentions these, even if with a mysterious image, for which, I believe, there are many different and beautiful interpretations. It has been said that the dragon places a large river of water before the fleeing woman to overcome her. And it would seem inevitable that the woman will drown in this river. But the good earth absorbs this river and it cannot be harmful. I think that the river is easily interpreted: these are the currents that dominate all and wish to make faith in the Church disappear, the Church that does not have a place anymore in front of the force of these currents that impose themselves as the only rationality, as the only way to live. And the earth that absorbs these currents is the faith of the simple at heart, that does not allow itself to be overcome by these rivers and saves the Mother and saves the Son."

It is possible in light of this to return to the beginning of the Holy Father's remarks, which were about the import of 11 October, the date on which this synod began and also the date that in our day we rightfully revere the opening the Second Vatican Council. However, Pope Benedict reminds us that his predecessor, Bl. John XXIII, chose 11 October as the starting date of the council because it is the day that "the feast... of the Divine Motherhood of Mary was celebrated and, with this gesture, with this date, Pope John wished to entrust the whole Council into the motherly hands and maternal heart of the Madonna." Indeed, the Holy Father goes on to say, "Theotokos is a courageous title. A woman is the Mother of God. One could say: how is this possible? God is eternal, he is the Creator. We are creatures, we are in time: how could a human being be the Mother of God, of the Eternal, since we are all in time, we are all creatures?" Nonetheless, he continues, "[n]ot only was a man born that had something to do with God, but in [Jesus Christ] was born God on earth. God came from himself. But we could also say the opposite: God drew us to Himself, so that we are not outside of God, but we are within the intimate, the intimacy of God Himself."

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam

The Judas Shuffle

"It was not for the thirty pieces of silver / but for the hope / that He awakened / in me that day. I was a quiet man, / I had a comfortable life, / I even used to pay my respects / to God in His house. / But one day that Man came, / He spoke of peace and love / He said that He was the Messiah, / my Savior. // Through lands dried up by the sun, / through the streets of every village / we were suffocated by the crowd / with their outstretched hands, / but then the days went by / and His kingdom did not come. / I had already given Him everything / and He betrayed me. // My heart became like stone / and my eyes became good at escaping. / He had given me anguish / and so He had to die. / Hanging from a tree is a body / that is no longer mine. / Now I see in His eyes / that He is the Son of God." (C. Chieffo, Il monologo di Giuda [Judas’ Monologue]).

The lyrics of this song by Claudio Chieffo describe well the interior drama that all serious Christians experience. In fact, it is something that leads many to stop following Him, at least in an intentional way. Our initial encounter is something that holds a lot of promise, the answer to many of life's problems, a way to overcome our many difficulties. Let us never forget that His summons to us is this: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" (Luke 9:23-25- ESV). Without doubt this is a hard saying. It is not what we want to hear, let alone to strive to live.

The Prayer of St. Francis, which cannot be traced any earlier than the second decade of the last century, expresses this well. Most often we hear or recite the first line of this beautiful prayer, which, if not composed by my brother deacon, certainly expresses well his manner of discipleship: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace." But the way I see it, it is the prayer's ending that should catch our attention, echoing, as it does, the summons of the Lord:

"For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life"

Indeed, as we endeavor to serve the Lord each day by carrying our cross and helping others to carry theirs, by giving without counting the cost or expecting anything in return, by forgiving even the most egregious wrongs others commit against us, by dying to ourselves and living for Him, we easily begin to wonder, What's in this for me? How long must I keep this up? When, Lord, will I see your glory? The short answer to the first question is- Everything! As Fr.Carrón recently reminded the Responsibles of Communion & Liberation: "There’s no [distance] greater than the one between being and nothingness!"

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam

At the service of an ideology

Sadly, yet predictably, many have turned the recent suicides of five homosexual young men into propaganda at the service of an ideology. The good news is that these movements tend to reach a tipping point almost as quickly as they emerge by, ironically, turning into just the kind of thing they set out to oppose in the first place. I was thinking about all this yesterday afternoon, trying to determine how I might approach this issue in writing in a constructive and charitable way, which is why I am very grateful that my dear friend Deacon Greg Kandra's response to an article by Michele Somerville for The Huffington Post over on his blog The Deacon's Bench does just this.

Somerville's piece is a great example of what I tried to describe above. Stated simply, it is intemperate, unfair, and at the service of an ideology. All she does is further polarize and alienate people from each other by reducing the beliefs of others, in this case Catholics, to so much idiotic simple-mindedness. At the level of both Christian experience and reflection is the divinely revealed reality that "God is love" (1 John 4:8.16- ESV). From this one can easily deduce that God does not hate anyone. Her article reminds me of the well-intentioned, but very unbalanced, editorials I used to read in the campus newspaper at university. It takes the tone that "If you don't agree with me, then there is something really wrong with you."

Like the term islamophobia, with which I took issue during the great Ground Zero mosque debate, I think the term homophobia is slung around far too carelessly. Besides not describing any actual psychological malady, it has a disturbingly totalitarian ring to it, the kind employed by dangerous ideologies, like in the Soviet Union, where people were institutionalized for refusing to toe the party line. After all, a phobia is not merely a fear, but an irrational fear, one that needs therapy.

This is not to insist for one minute that homosexual people do not often experience prejudice and unjust discrimination, they certainly do in many quarters. Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church states unequivocally that homosexual persons "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity." More apropos to the subject at hand, the Catechism goes on to assert that "[e]very sign of unjust discrimination" against homosexual persons "should be avoided" (2358). To wit, we have perfectly acceptable ways of discussing prejudice, unjust discrimination, and even bigotry, without inexpertly condemning others to the psych ward. Increasingly, the epithet homophobic is employed to stifle honest discussion.

With his post, Homophobia in the Church? Really?, Deacon Greg makes a valuable contribution to the current discussion by bringing balance and perspective. I think his conclusion is worth repeating:

"Catholic teaching on sexuality is more complicated and nuanced than many realize. And, despite what writers like Somerville may think, there is a moral framework on which that teaching is built -- a framework constructed on something truly radical, and audacious, and sacred, a framework that not only offers dignity to those people who experience same sex attraction, but which also demands that they be treated with Christian love."

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam

Faith is movement

Faith is a two way movement, always initiated by God, who uses everything, especially our difficulties, to draw us to Himself. God uses our difficulties because it is precisely in this aspect of our existence that we realize we are not self-sufficient. Those who open themselves to God's loving care come to see, as Bl. John Henry Newman observed, that
"[t]en thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."

In writing about the works of Graham Greene, seeing that they are thoroughly imbued with grace, Owen Cummings observes that the greatness of Greene's oeuvre "lies in recognizing and struggling with the ambiguities not of life in general, but our own individual lives, even as we strive to remain faithful to God." He goes on to observe that "[t]he grace of Graham Greene lies in accepting our complexity, our fragility, our permeative sense of incompleteness and yet not giving up." Finally, the greatness of Greene's writing "lies in glimpsing, albeit occasionally and partially, that our holy God is"- here he quotes a Methodist hymn- "the Love that will not let us go" (Thinking About Prayer 75).

If you have never read Greene's The Power and the Glory, or his The Heart of the Matter, the latter of which Cummings uses for his discussion of Greene's narratively unpackaged theology of grace, you have two great things to which to look forward.

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam

God is on Lazarus' side

Below is the complete homily preached by Archbishop Thomas Wenski on the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Archbishop Wenski is the archbishop of Miami. Prior to being named the bishop of the Diocese of Orlando, Florida, where he was prior to being named to the See of Miami earlier this year, Wenski was a priest of the Archdiocese of Miami. He is a social worker by education, training, and experience. He worked closely with the Haitian community in Miami over many years as a priest/pastor. His homily was delivered at a Mass on Sunday, 26 September 2010, that marked the end of the meeting of the Haitian Conference of Catholic Bishops. I am very glad the Archdiocese of Miami made it available on their website.

It is worth reading and pondering in its entirety because Archbishop Wenski reminds us, by employing two great saints of the last century, Dom Hélder Câmara and Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, that the Gospel is not at the service of any ideology, but of the Lord and Him alone, which is why the Eucharist is not just central to, but the very center of all we do. The Eucharist is why I am religious and not merely spiritual. It is worth noting in reference to Dom Hélder being labelled a "red bishop" what made him "red" by using his own words: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist." It was also held against Mother Teresa that she readily accepted that she could not save the world, but she could serve the poor and dying in the streets of Calcutta.

Readings: Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Ps. 146:7-10; 1 Tim. 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31

"Let me begin our reflection on the readings we have just heard with a quote.

"'…How can we exclude anyone from our care? Rather we must recognize Christ in the poorest and the most marginalized, those whom the Eucharist – which is communion is the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us – commits us to serve. As the parable of the rich man, who will remain forever without a name, and the poor man called Lazarus clearly shows, ‘in the stark contrast between the insensitive rich man and the poor in need of everything, God is on the latter’s side’. We too must be on this same side.'

"Who wrote these words? Was it Dom Helder Camarra? – Who as the bishop of Recife in Brazil won a well deserved reputation as a champion of the poor but was repudiated by his critics as a 'red bishop' always in trouble with Rome. Was it Mother Teresa? – That dynamic woman of faith who tended to the rejected and dying in the streets of Calcutta and the world but who also had her critics. If Helder’s critics came from 'the right', hers came from 'the left'. This was not just because of her unambiguous pro-life stance but also because she was content to serve the poor where she found them without setting into motion any great movement of 'social reform'.

"The words actually come from the late great Pope John Paul II in a message he gave for a World Peace Day some years ago. He wished to remind Catholics that involvement in what are sometimes called 'peace and justice' issues is not optional – nor it is the purview of those who would label themselves either 'liberal' or 'conservative'. Rather such involvement is a constitutive part of the living out of our faith. Solidarity as the late Pope once said is another word for justice in our day. It is 'a firm and preserving determination to commit oneself to the common good.' Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #38

"As Archbishop I am happy to have our visitors from Haiti and elsewhere come and see our seminary and some of its fine students. The seminarians, of course, have assisted us in our liturgies these past few days. But, more importantly, I am happy to have these seminari[an]s see you – and to understand better by seeing you how important our witness to solidarity is as members of a universal church. The collaboration of representatives of several Episcopal conferences with the Bishops of Haiti is an important expression of collegiality and solidarity – and though the work of our meeting here in Miami in discussing how our collaboration can be structured so as to assist the Haitian Church in rebuilding after the earthquake might seem a bit mundane and a bit far removed from what seminarians might imagine bishops to be normally preoccupied with, it is important for these future priests to understand how varied and complex the Church’s commitment to solidarity and to justice is.

"As Catholics, we must be involved in the issues of world hunger, human rights, peace building and justice promotion. This social ministry is not opposed to the ultimate spiritual and transcendent destiny of the human person. It presupposes this destiny and is ultimately orientated to this end. If this earth is our only highway to heaven, then we must seek to maintain it – and to make sure to the best of our abilities that this highway is cleared of the obstacles which sin -both personal and structural- has place in the path of those traveling on it.

"To go back to the parable of Lazarus: the rich man was condemned not for anything he did (though certainly one can go to hell for doing bad things) but for what he did not do. A faith without works – without concrete engagement with the least of our brethren is dead.

"The Eucharist reminds us that our commitment as Catholics to work for peace and justice in the world is not born of some ideology or political platform; rather, it is born of a person, Jesus Christ. And therefore, our 'solidarity' with the world of pain is a call to a commitment expressed in allegiance not to lofty propositions but to concrete persons in whom we are to see the face of Christ – this solidarity is lived out through the practice of what the Catechism calls the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. God takes the side of the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized – through the works of mercy, we take their side too."

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam

The Première Memorial of Bl. John Henry Newman

Today, 9 October 2010, marks the first ever liturgical memorial of Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman, beatified by Pope Benedict XVI a mere few weeks ago during his apostolic journey to Great Britain.

A diaconal bow to Deacon Greg over at the Bench for a timely reminder of this important day. For those familiar with my own conversion, Cardinal Newman's writings, not merely his Apologia, but more centrally his still timely Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, were decisive for me. I also love Newman's Dream of Gerontius, especially since Dr. (Deacon) Owen Cummings' lecture on it and the performance by our Cathedral Choir of Edward Elgar's oratorio for last year's centenary of The Cathedral of the Madeleine. The poem begins:

"JESU, MARIA—I am near to death,
And Thou art calling me; I know it now.
Not by the token of this faltering breath,
This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow,—
(Jesu, have mercy! Mary, pray for me!)
'Tis this new feeling, never felt before,
(Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!)
That I am going, that I am no more.
'Tis this strange innermost abandonment,
(Lover of souls! great God! I look to Thee,)
This emptying out of each constituent
And natural force, by which I come to be."

"O God, who bestowed on the Priest Blessed John Henry Newman the grace to follow your kindly light and find peace in your Church; graciously grant that, through his intercession and example, we may be led out of shadows and images into the fullness of your truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever." Amen!

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us.

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam